DIOGENES: In Search Of An Honest Politician!

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Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Who Cares What Jay Z Thinks and Why Don Lemon Is Right about Blacks in America

The fact blacks praised Jay Z for his comments on the Zimmerman verdict and bashed CNN’s Don Lemon for pointing out the problems blacks bring on themselves is exactly what’s wrong with “Black America.”

I’ve always rejected the news media and self-appointed black leaders' persistent efforts in relegating blacks into a group of political zombies, void individualism and personal responsibility. But against the backdrop of the George Zimmerman murder trial of Trayvon Martin and the race hustlers’ desperate attempt to turn the “event” into a white on black hate crime, the ugly scab of black culture was revealed.

This fake race war also brought out the worst behavior in black Americans who called people like me and Don Lemmon, “house niggas, sellouts, and Uncle Toms” among other unsavory names for daring to offer constructive criticism and say blacks are their own worst nightmare and need to take responsibility for their bad behavior!

During his CNN show this weekend, Lemon admitted now the trial was over he felt he could offer some “tough love” about the ills facing the black race. He said he didn’t want to do that during the trial because it was a “deflection” from what happened to Trayvon.

In a pointed monologue, Lemon agreed with Bill O’Reilly’s observations the near collapse of the black family (73% of black babies born out of wedlock) is the number one cause, as I have said repeatedly, for the pervasive violence gripping the black race and driving its economic decline.

But Lemon said O’Reilly didn’t go far enough. He told blacks there were five things they shouldn’t do.

Five: Wear their pants hanging off their butt because it comes from the prison culture where inmates aren’t allowed to wear belts and the lower hanging pants indicate “which role a prisoner will play during male on male prison sex.” Four: stop using n***er in any way because it’s abhorrent.

Three: stop trashing the neighborhood where you live. Two: get an education. One, “just because you can have a baby, it doesn’t mean you should.”

Basic common sense advice. But many blacks didn’t want to hear this truth and insulted Lemon with profanity laced tweets, making themselves look like the savages other Americans, including other blacks, fear.

In contrast, when Jay Z offered up his cup of Zimmerman racist juice, blacks happily drank it up. Commenting on the not guilty verdict, millionaire rapper Jay Z said, "I was really angry, I didn't sleep for two days.” He added that Trayvon was just going to the store to buy Skittles and a drink and “had no intention of robbing anyone."

“We all know it was wrong. It was wrong. . .First of all, you're not a professional to profile someone. . . This guy's a (effing) mall cop,” Jay Z declared of Zimmerman.

Jay Z must be a mind reader because evidence gathered in the case, some of which the defense wasn’t allowed to present during the trial, revealed Trayvon wasn’t such an innocent 17 year old teen. He was suspended three times from school and stolen jewelry and a burglary tool were found in his locker. Text messages from Trayvon’s cell phone also showed he liked to fight, wanted to buy a gun and get high on codeine. Text messages exchanged with a friend, who told Trayvon how to make Lean or Purple Drank, using fruit juice, Skittles and cough syrup with codeine in it like Robitussin. Martin’s toxicology report showed his liver was damaged consistent with drug abuse caused by Lean.

I guess Jay Z didn’t bother with the fact the FBI’s investigation last year into the incident concluded race had nothing to do with Zimmerman killing Trayvon. And Jay Z couldn’t be bothered with the fact some jurors said there wasn’t enough evidence to convict Zimmerman and the case should never have been brought to trial.

As a former drug dealer, who’s been shot three times, blacks shouldn’t care what Jay Z thinks. Jay Z has no credibility talking about racism or violence, because as Lemon noted, hip-hop and rap stars like Jay Z glorifying a thug culture is “making a lot of people rich, just not you.” In fact Jay Z’s music incites young black males to violence. Maybe Jay Z should lose some sleep over that.

Did Travyon Martin deserve to die? No. Could Travyon Martin’s upbringing and not enough parental attention have had something to do with his death? Possibly. Could Trayvon have thrown the first punch and tragically died as a result of it? Yes.

What angers many blacks about the Zimmerman trial is it uncorked how fed up Americans are with all the excuses so called “black leaders,” Democrats and the media always make for the black race’s failings. A violent, black sub culture that glorifies crime, misogyny, profanity, and hatred of whites is driving the high crime, high school dropout rates, illegitimate births, poverty and government dependency rooted in the black race. We need more black people like Don Lemon to have the audacity to repudiate this behavior, not apologize for it.

Sen. Mike Lee in Obamacare Colloquy: ‘Defund It Or Own It’

WASHINGTON — A trio of GOP senators challenged their colleagues — especially Republicans — to join an effort to block funding for Obamacare in the continuing resolution that’s expected to keep the government running in the usual absence of a budget come Sept. 30.
“We don’t have to vote to fund something with which we fundamentally disagree,” said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who led the afternoon colloquy on the floor of the upper chamber. “…Defund it or own it — if you fund it, you’re for it.”
But Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), touting his credentials as an original opponent of the 2010 law, wielded a new Congressional Research Service report that states Obamacare can’t be defunded by stemming the appropriations process — leaving repeal, which has never made it through the Senate, the only option.
Coburn took issue with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for saying that Congress is to blame for the law.
“I would just say thank the Democrats, because not one Republican voted for it,” the Oklahoma senator said. “…The president and his allies created this mess that we’re about to deal with.”
The report released by Coburn’s office today says “substantial implementation might continue during a lapse in annual appropriations that resulted in a temporary government shutdown.”
“You cannot design a piece of legislation to defund Obamacare because the vast majority of it is mandatory spending,” Coburn told his colleagues, adding “their motivations are absolutely pure” and stressing that he’s never voted for a continuing resolution out of opposition to the stopgap measure in principle.
“The only effective way to truly stop Obamacare … would be to totally reverse it,” he added. “We don’t have the votes to do that. But we do have the votes to delay it.”
Cruz admitted in the colloquy that the votes weren’t currently there to pass a wholesale defunding of Obamacare, but said Republicans and some Democrats could come around if the American people rose up “en masse” over the next 62 days to demand a freeze to the healthcare law.
“Nothing is hurting the American economy more than Obamacare,” Cruz said. “There is bipartisan agreement on that.”
Cruz said the 190 million hours or more of Obamacare paperwork burdens expected every year were enough for Mount Rushmore to “be constructed 1,547 times.”
The show of force by Lee, Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) just before the August recess stirred reminders of the 2010 congressional recess, where town hall meetings seethed with anger over Obamacare, signed into law that March, and a budding Tea Party movement took the House out of Democrats’ hands in midterm elections.
It was also the year Lee and Rubio won their seats.
Rubio compared Obamacare to New Coke, a 1985 reformulation of the classic cola that was so reviled the company shifted back to Coke Classic.
“What did Coca-Cola do when New Coke began to flounder? They didn’t say, ‘Well, we’re just gonna continue to make more of it.’ They backed away from it. They went back to the original formula. They learned from their mistake, and they didn’t double down. That’s the way it is in the real world,” Rubio said. “That’s the way it is in our lives, and that’s the way it is in the private sector, but not government. Not Washington!”
He said that he’ll vote for every repeal bill, but called the chance of any such legislative effort working “minimal as long as President Obama is president of the United States.”
Rubio argued that if a continuing resolution defunding Obamacare passed, and Obama refused to sign it, then a government shutdown would be on his hands, not the Senate’s.
“To my colleagues in Republican Party — this is our last best chance to do something about this,” he implored. “…You cannot go home and say you did everything you did to stop Obamacare if you vote for a budget that funds it.”
Lee noted the array of uncertainty and premium hikes already being realized in the law’s early days, adding that the Affordable Care Act is a “misnomer.”
“We don’t know exactly how much healthcare is going to cost us,” he said, noting that the bill still has yet “to be modified by tens of thousands of pages of regulations.”
“All of these modifications have created additional uncertainty,” Lee said.
“The president admitted this law is not ready for primetime… the American people deserve not to have this law implemented.”
Lee took a jab at Republicans’ strategy of figuring they could wait until Obama was defeated in 2012 to repeal the healthcare law. “That didn’t happen,” he noted.
Now, the Utah senator said, they need to wield “the power of the purse.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who wasn’t in the Senate for the afternoon colloquy, said some Republicans’ objection to taking the defund route is “like announcing preemptive surrender.”
“Myself, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, we’re not arguing to shut down the government. We’re arguing to defund Obamacare. But the Republicans that are announcing surrender, they have already taken the next leap. They are saying, oh, you want to shut down government. No, we don’t,” Paul said Monday on Fox.
“We are standing up for what we believe in and we want to use the leverage of the people who voted for us to try to get reform in government. I don’t see how anybody could criticize that,” he added.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said last week that votes in the lower chamber to defund parts of Obamacare had forced Obama to make changes to the law seven times “that would never have happened, had it not been for our continued efforts to defund this, and to repeal it.”
“We will continue to do everything we can to defund it, to repeal it, and to make sure that the American people aren’t put through this horrific experience,” he said.
When asked about Lee’s effort, though, Boehner said GOP leadership has “not made any decisions about how we’re going to deal with the CR.”
Coburn maintained, though, that the good intentions of the junior senators weren’t anchored in reality.
“There is no way that the vast majority of funding can be stopped until you reverse the whole bill,” he said.
On the question of state and federal health exchanges, CRS said in its report that “other sources of funding besides annual discretionary appropriations are available in FY 2014 and beyond to support exchange operations.”
“ACA also provided the Secretary [of Health and Human Services] with an indefinite annual appropriation to award exchange planning and establishment grants to states through 2014,” CRS continues. “Each year, the Secretary determines the amount of funding that will be made available to states through this grant program.”
CRS didn’t see the individual mandate being affected by current budget wrangling because the IRS wouldn’t likely begin assessing the individual mandate penalties until 2015, for the 2014 tax year.
“If a government shutdown were to occur during calendar year 2014, the lapse in funding would not automatically suspend the requirements of the individual mandate,” the report says. “In other words, during the time period that the government is shut down, taxpayers who fall within the coverage of the individual mandate would still be accruing penalties for any months in which they lacked minimum essential coverage.”
Coburn said he’d be with Lee, Rubio and Cruz in voting against the continuing resolution. “I think that’s terrible way to fund the government,” he said.
Going the route of a replacement law is among their options, he said. “There wasn’t any real debate on alternatives because we weren’t allowed to offer them” back when the law was passed.
“We need to rein this president in, I agree,” Coburn said. “If we could end [Obamacare], I’d end it tomorrow — we need to delay to the point where we can kill it. It does need to be terminated.”

There was confusion Wednesday after the Arizona Republican mistakenly strolled into President Obama’s meeting with Senate Democrats at the Capitol.
The room full of Democrats — who happened to be meeting in the same room where the Senate GOP usually holds their weekly policy luncheons — erupted in applause and laughter as the former Republican presidential candidate made his entrance.
As McCain, 76, walked out of the Dem-filled space, reporters pressed him as to why he stepped foot in the room.
Saying he “had to give a speech,” McCain was eyed walking away sporting a big grin.
Obama scheduled Wednesday powwows with House and Senate Democrats just ahead of Congress’ five-week recess.
McCain has emerged as a dealmaker in talks with Democrats, and has had numerous dustups this year with the Tea Party wing of the GOP. At one point he memorably described Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) as “wacko birds.”
The senator on Wednesday joked it would a "difficult choice" for him if Paul and Democrat Hillary Clinton were to face off for the presidency in 2016.

Censored! IRS Scandal Being Buried by Big Three Networks

The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks have colluded with the Obama administration to censor the latest IRS scandal news.

The following is a list of key developments in the IRS scandal and how many days it has been since they were discussed, if at all, by the Big Three on their morning and evening news shows:
Update, Wednesday, July 31: House Oversight Committee Requests Investigation Into Conservative Groups Being Unfairly Audited
On July 29, the Washington Post reported that “Two top Republicans from the House oversight committee have asked for an investigation into whether the embattled Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups, this time after the organizations were already approved for tax-exempt status.”
In a letter sent to Treasury Department Inspector General Russell George, Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and Representative Jim Jordan stated: “We are troubled by evidence that the IRS may have conducted unnecessary audits and systematic post hoc reviews of entire groups of applicants as well as certain groups that have long possessed tax-exempt status.”
On the July 29 edition of FNC’s “On the Record” Abigail Alger of The Leadership Institute and Michelle Easton from The Claire Boothe Luce Policy Institute came on to discuss their concerns, with host Greta Van Susteren, that they were unfairly audited by the IRS.
Number of days with no network story: 1
Latest story counts as of Wednesday morning July 31:
Update, Monday, July 29: Stephanopoulos and Crowley Skip IRS Scandal with Lew, Gregory Cues Up Talking Points; Only Wallace Pursues IRS Employees Ordered to Send Tea Party Applications to Office of Obama Political Appointee
On July 17, as reported by CNSNews.com, a letter released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform reported that IRS employees were ordered to send Tea Party tax-exemption applications to the office of the IRS’s Chief Counsel, which was headed by William Wilkins, who at that time was the only Obama political appointee at the IRS. In 2008 Wilkins led the defense team of Obama pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright when his church’s tax-exempt status was being investigated.
Number of days with no story on ABC or NBC: 13 (CBS finally ran a story on the July 24 Evening News)
IRS Chief Counsel Meets with Obama Just Days Before New Screening Rules Implemented
On July 24 FoxNews.com reported that Obama political appointee and head of the office of the IRS's Chief Counsel William Wilkins “may have met with President Obama just days before his office put out new guidance on how the agency screens conservative groups.”
Number of days with no network story: 6
Justice Department Refuses to Investigate Government Employees Improperly Accessing Tax Records of Candidates and Donors
On July 15, as reported by the Washington Times, tax records of political candidates (The Times later reported on July 17 one of the candidates included one-time GOP Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell) and certain donors were improperly accessed by government officials, and that the Justice Department has, so far, refused to prosecute the offenders.
Number of days with no network story: 15
Records on Tax Investigation of Republican Senate Candidate Mysteriously Destroyed
On July 23, as reported by the Washington Times, “Delaware state officials told Congress that they likely destroyed the computer records that would show when and how often they accessed Christine O'Donnell’s personal tax records and acknowledged that a newspaper article was used as the sole justification for snooping into the former GOP Senate candidate’s tax history.”
Number of days with no network story: 7
Businessman With Insider Ties Awarded $500 Million in IRS Contracts
On June 25, as reported by Politico.com, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee revealed that $500 million of IRS contracts had been awarded to Strong Castle Inc., because its president Braulio Castillo had a “cozy relationship” with a top agency official.
CBS’s Nancy Cordes, on the June 25 Evening News, first reported on the Castillo story and noted that he filed for a disability rating with the Veterans Administration, citing a foot injury he received while playing sports at a military prep school. It was this point that caused a confrontation between Castillo and Iraq war veteran and Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth at a June 26 hearing. The showdown spurred NBC to cover the story as well. But not even the anger from a prominent Democrat could get ABC to report on the Castillo scandal.
In total the Big Three ran a total of six stories on the Castillo scandal. CBS ran five stories on Castillo, while NBC aired just one full story on the Castillo/Duckworth confrontation on the June 27 Today show. NBC’s Lisa Myers made a brief mention of Castillo as part of June 26 Today show story that dealt with other IRS scandals.
The last Castillo stories were on the June 27 editions of NBC’s Today show and CBS This Morning.
Number of days since last network story: 33
Despite Sequester, IRS Still Plans to Give Out $70 Million in Employee Bonuses
On June 19, as reported by The Hill, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley slams the IRS for its plan to dole out $70 million in employee bonuses in spite of sequester agreement. CBS was the only network to report on the bonuses offering just two briefs on the June 20 edition of This Morning.
Number of days since last network story: 40

Stand Your Ground laws have become a racial issue in the aftermath of the not guilty . President Obama and Attorney General Holder have weighed in, linking race and these laws.
On ABC News' "This Week," radio talk show host Travis Smiley declared what many think: "It appears to me, and I think many other persons in this country that you can in fact stand your ground unless you are a black man."
And they seem to have some evidence of this, now that the Tampa Bay Times has reviewed Florida's court cases to find “defendants claiming ‘stand your ground’ are more likely to prevail if the victim is black.”
In the wake of the not guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial musician Stevie Wonder's boycott of Florida until law is "abolished" has been joined over the last few days by Harry Belafonte and Chaka Khan.
Poor blacks who live in high crime urban areas are not only the most likely victims of crime, they are also the ones who benefit the most from Stand Your Ground laws. Meanwhile, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission has launched its own investigation on Stand Your Ground laws and the Senate Judiciary committee recently announced its plan to hold hearings in September.
But the debate has everything backwards over who benefits from the law. Poor blacks who live in high crime urban areas are not only the most likely victims of crime, they are also the ones who benefit the most from Stand Your Ground laws. It makes it easier for them to protect themselves when the police can't be there fast enough. Rules that make self-defense more difficult would impact blacks the most. . . .

Pew poll: GOP voters have a fee-vah and the only prescription is … Paul Ryan?

I think he’s going to end up not running, but if his favorables stay this high, maybe he has no choice.
He’s technically “next in line” and he’d make a decent compromise candidate (as would fellow Wisconsinite Scott Walker) for righties who are leery of Christie, Paul, and Rubio for various reasons. Second look at Paul Ryan?
Are Ryan’s numbers really that surprising? He’s been overlooked on blogs lately because we’ve all been busy shaking our fists at Rubio over immigration and gawking at the Rand Paul/Chris Christie brawl, but thanks to 2012, Ryan’s name recognition is sky high. He’s a warrior on the budget but soft-spoken enough not to spook moderates. Grassroots righties are newly steamed at him because he seems to be slipping into the Rubio role in the House of pushing conservatives towards a deal on amnesty, but nothing’s happened yet and he’s smart enough to keep a much lower profile on the issue than Rubio did. Most low-information voters on our side probably know him as that nice young guy from the midwest who’s deeply concerned that our spending is unsustainable. Why wouldn’t he be at 65 percent favorables? And why wouldn’t he have better numbers with tea partiers than with centrists? His core issue is reforming the welfare state. Centrists resist that, partly because they’re more comfortable with bigger government and partly because they’re probably more sensitive on balance to “electability” concerns. Conservatives might be willing to risk a ferocious political backlash in the name of fixing entitlements. I doubt many centrists are.
The real surprise is Rand Paul’s numbers. His favorables among tea partiers are now 11 points better than Rubio’s, thanks in part to immigration, of course. But his numbers among non-tea-partiers are comparable to centrist hero Chris Christie’s and amnesty champion Marco Rubio’s. Maybe that’ll change in the primaries as his philosophy is scrutinized more closely; if centrists think Paul Ryan is too much of a threat to the welfare state, wait ’til they get a load of the great libertarian hope. Christie’s unfavorables among non-TPers are also a mild surprise. I wonder if that’s more a reaction to his policies or to fatigue with his tough-guy shtick. Either way, maybe he’s more vulnerable than we thought.
One more graph:
For all the babbling about party divisions lately vis-a-vis defunding ObamaCare, there’s only minor division on immigration. Pluralities on both the right and in the center think the GOP should be more conservative about the border. Tell me something, though: What would it mean for the party to be “more conservative” on gay marriage at this point? Despite a heavy tide nationally and in government in favor of legalizing SSM, only a handful of congressional Republicans have come out in support of it. House Republicans sued to enforce DOMA because Obama’s DOJ refused to. Rubio declared that benefits for gay spouses under the Gang of Eight bill would have been a dealbreaker for him. What should the party be doing to please social conservatives that it isn’t? Forget about the Federal Marriage Amendment. That’snothing but a rhetorical device at this point; it’ll never pass.
I’m loath to close with something from Think Progress but if their transcript of this Paul Ryan townhall vid is accurate, it’s news. Here he is on immigration reform:

RYAN: [...] Bringing these bills to the floor, we’ll find out. It is not, “they don’t come to the floor unless we have a majority of the majority,” because we don’t know if we have a majority until we vote on it. So here’s where I see things going. I’ve spoken to John Boehner as recently as three days ago about this, which is, we all agree it is better to legislate in stages instead of one big thousand plus page bill that no one has read. [...] I’m trying to get to a consensus so a majority of us do support those component parts. I believe that’s achievable because when people really look at the details and they focus on what’s right, I believe what I’ve just laid out is something that a consensus of Republicans and Democrats can agree to.

Is that quote accurate? The audio makes it hard to tell. The whole point of the Hastert Rule is not to bring bills to the floor until the Speaker knows that a majority of his caucus supports them. Doing it the way Ryan describes (or seems to describe) would mean abandoning the Hastert Rule; you bring the bill to the floor, kinda sorta hoping/expecting that a majority of GOPers will vote for it, and if it turns out that only a few dozen do — plus 200 Democrats, such that the bill passes — then whoopsie! Guess they miscalculated. Is that what he’s saying or did TP misunderstand?

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is asking civil rights leader Jesse Jackson to apologize for “reckless and divisive” comments following the jury verdict in the George Zimmerman murder trial.
Jackson on Tuesday called Florida “the Selma of our time.” The remark follows Jackson saying Florida was an “Apartheid State,” after a jury earlier this month found Zimmerman not guilty on all charges in the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin.
“Jesse Jackson owes every Floridian an apology for his reckless and divisive comments,” the Republican governor said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that he would come to Florida to insult Floridians and divide our state at a time when we are striving for unity and healing.”(continued)

During a 17-minute speech in the briefing room of the White House, President Barack Obama sought to explain the reason why a large number of African-Americans have had a visceral reaction regarding the not-guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman case. In his remarks, the president tried to contextualize that reaction by highlighting the fraught experiences of African-Americans with the justice system.

The justice system has been a perennial concern for African-Americans. This worry stems from the blatant disparities that have plagued the system. In any society, the justice system is a critical institution because of the role that it plays in keeping order. In this country, a number of white Americans and those who are tasked to maintain order tend to perceive African Americans, particularly black males, as potential lawbreakers. This perception has been used as a justification to implement many policies — widespread use of racial profiling by law enforcement and disparity in sentencing for drug offenses — that greatly harm African Americans. Despite many white Americans' fear of black violence, African-Americans have never been in a position to actually take action that would create havoc in white communities. For the African-American community, the reverse has always been true. Because of the way that they are viewed and targeted, African-Americans, especially black males, should be concerned for their safety or their well-being, not their white counterparts.

The link between blackness and criminality has deep historical roots in the country. As pointed out by Khalid Muhammad in his book The Condemnation of Blackness, the notion that blacks have a propensity for criminality was established in the 19th century. The connection, therefore, between blackness and criminality has been embedded into the consciousness of white Americans for over a century.

There has never been a shortage of violence committed against African Americans ever since the first slave ship arrived on American shores. This violence resulted in the deaths and subjugation of millions of people. In some parts of the country, many black males were lynched. Even worse, those lynchings were a social event. None of these terrifying acts of violence was perpetrated by people of color. So it's logical to ask, why are African Americans the only group that is carrying the burden of criminality in America, despite being the victims and not the perpetrators of the most atrocious acts of violence that took place in the country's history?

As Jamelle Bouie noted, most crimes tend to occur within racial groups. For instance, 94% of crimes committed against African-Americans are committed by other African-Americans — the so-called "black-on-black crimes" that have been bandied about over and over in some conservative circles. However, 86% of crimes committed against whites are perpetrated by other whites. In spite of their grave worry of being victimized by some black males, a white American has a much greater chance of being killed by another Caucasian. But most whites would not be disabused of their paralyzing fear by this fact about white-on-white crimes. The reason is simple. As David Levering, a historian who won the Pulitzer Prize, once pointed out, in America “whites committed crimes but blacks are criminals.” In order words, no matter the viciousness of the crime or violence perpetrated by a white person or by some whites, such a crime would never sully whites as a group because their crimes are regarded by many whites as individual acts. Thus, in judging these criminal acts, the judgment would fall only on the individual or individuals, not the entire racial group.

For African-Americans, on the other hand, the implication of being viewed as criminals are manifold. When a crime is committed by an African American, this act of violence reflects badly not only on the perpetrator but on the entire group. Consequently, for a large segment of white Americans, any African-American whom they cannot instantly identify tends to be regarded as a potential criminal until proven otherwise. In endorsing the way that Zimmerman racially profiled Trayvon Martin on the night that he shot the unarmed teenager, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen spoke for many whites as he candidly shared his fear of black males. One of the major consequences of that fear of African-Americans is the way that the justice system treats them. A case in point is the disparity in drug sentencing, which helps swell the number of incarcerated African-Americans. In 1980, for instance, the number of African-Americans in jail was 143,000. In the past 30 years, however, this number has skyrocketed. Today, there are more than 2 million African-Americans in prison.

The association of black males with criminality is as old as the country itself. Despite the crime statistics showing that whites are more likely to be victimized by other whites, the oft-repeated narrative that conflates blackness with criminality creates a fear among many whites that is as real as it is irrational. As Andrew Sullivan indicated, Cohen has a 0.00015% chance of being attacked by a black assailant. But his fear of black violence still remains pronounced, which helps explain why black males receive much harsher sentences than their white counterpart for similar offenses. This irrational fear helps explain why racial profiling is so prevalent. Finally, this irrational fear helps explain why most white Americans identify with Zimmerman instead of Trayvon, the unarmed teenager whom Zimmerman fatally shot while he was headed home. The prevalence of racial profiling and the stiffer sentences meted out to black males show that the justice system tend to devalue their humanity. Equally important, those policies, which severely impact African-American communities, indicate that white Americans have always been and continue to be in a position to inflict much greater harm on African Americans despite their unreasonable fear that they could fall victims to black violence.

Ted Cruz taunts fellow Republicans in Obamacare fight

Ted Cruz is taking his hardball tactics to a whole new level. The Texas freshman senator and his senior aides are unleashing a barrage of attacks on their fellow Republicans for refusing to support their plan to choke off Obamacare as a condition for funding the government. Cruz’s chief of staff is lambasting fellow conservatives like Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn for serving in the “surrender caucus.” His top political strategist has compared Mitch McConnell to Barack Obama. And the senator himself has said many Republicans are “scared” to wage this fight.
The results have sparked something of a GOP civil war over an issue that, ironically, the GOP is united behind — repealing Obamacare. Cruz’s strategy is a departure from the usually clubby chamber, as he’s grown increasingly alienated from his caucus.
The essence of the clash is this: Cruz can’t comprehend why his GOP colleagues don’t welcome the fight, while more senior Republicans think the junior Texan simply doesn’t understand — or care — about the dire political consequences for their party of a government shutdown. Plus, Cruz’s critics think the plan to repeal Obamacare is destined to fail. But worries about a shutdown are falling on deaf ears.
“There is a powerful, defeatist approach among Republicans in Washington,” Cruz told conservative radio host Dana Loesch earlier this week. “I think they’re beaten down and they’re convinced that we can’t give a fight, and they’re terrified.”

A never-before-heard tape of Monica Lewinsky telling then-President Bill Clinton that she could 'take all my clothes off' if he agreed to an illicit meeting with her has reportedly surfaced.

The tape, which records the White House intern desperately trying to lure him into meeting her, was reportedly released to the National Enquirer after it was obtained by a cleaner hired by friends of Lewinsky.

It was long thought that the raunchy four-minute tape, which was recorded in November 1997, had been destroyed after the sexual affair was revealed in 1998, according to the Enquirer.

The recording, made months after their final alleged trust in March 1997, reportedly shows a determined Lewinsky, then 24, pleading with the married president to meet her - and telling him she plans to be persistent because 'I really want to see you'.

Revelations: An image from November 1995 shows President Bill Clinton and intern Monica Lewinsky - two years before she reportedly made an audio tape begging for him to meet with her

She adds that she is 'too cute and adorable' to be ignored, according to the magazine.

MailOnline has contacted a Clinton representative for comment on the latest reports.

On the recording, she offers Clinton two choices - that she could meet him at his office, or that they could watch a movie together.

'Since I know you will be alone tomorrow evening, I have two proposals for you, neither of which is you not seeing me,' she says, the National Enquirerreported.

'I could take my clothes off and start… well… I know you wouldn't enjoy that? I hope to see you later and I hope you will follow my script and do what I want.'

Former life: Lewinsky, who is pictured in March this year, was just 24 at the time of the recording

Together: At the time of the affair between 1995 and 1997, he was married to Hillary Clinton, pictured in April. There are concerns that these revelations could upset her expected run for the White House

She tells Clinton that his secretary, Betty Currie, should plan his schedule so that they could get away with not formally recording the meeting, according to the magazine.

For one plan, she instructs him to tell Currie that he was going to leave the office around 7pm the next evening before returning later that evening.

'In the meantime I quickly sneak over and then we can have a nice little visit for, you know, 15 minutes or half an hour. Whatever you want,' she says.

Her second suggestion is meeting him for a movie 'and just have kind of, I don¹t know, boxed dinners or something like that', she says.

She adds: 'You can't refuse me because I'm too cute and adorable and soon I won't be here anymore to pop over.'

Look of love: Lewinsky and Clinton are pictured together in December 1996. On the tape, she reportedly told him she could take off her clothes or suggested they went to a movie and had dinner together

Close: The pair embrace on November 6 1996 during a ceremony gathering the White House interns

MONICA'S PLEAS: HOW INTERN 'BEGGED TO SEE BILL'

Tapes and letters obtained by the National Enquirer reportedly show Monica Lewinsky desperate to meet with Clinton as their affair came to an end. Excerpts from the tape:

'Since I know you will be alone tomorrow evening, I have two proposals for you, neither of which is you not seeing me. So just deal with it!'

'I [can] quickly sneak over and then we can have a nice little visit for, you know, 15 minutes or half an hour. Whatever you want. I would really, really, really, really, really like that...

'My other proposal... maybe we could go over and watch a movie together and just have kind of, I don't know, boxed dinners or something...

'Those are the two proposals and you can't refuse me because I'm too cute and adorable and soon I won't be here anymore to pop over...

'I'm very persistent but I really want to see you... I could take all my clothes off and start...'

Excerpts from the letters:

'It was so sad seeing you last night because I was so angry with you that you once again rejected me and yet, all I wanted was for everyone else in the room to disappear and for you to hold me. I loved you with all of my heart, Bill.

'For the life of me, I can't understand how you could be so kind and so cruel to me...

'What did I do to deserve this? I am seriously depressed because of everything that has happened... I have lost profoundly both professionally and personally, and in a toss-up, our personal relationship changing has caused me more pain.'

She tells him that he should tell Currie what he wanted to do so she could call her 'so I don¹t have to stress out all day and I don¹t have to call her every two hours and bug her because, I know you will find this very hard to believe, but I can be a pain in the ass sometimes'.

'I'm very persistent, but um… I really want to see you,' she says.

The Enquirer reported that Lewinsky played the tape for Linda Tripp, who later revealed telephone tapes of the intern which led to Clinton's impeachment.

Tripp reportedly heard it on November 20, 1997 and it was taken to the Oval Office the next day, but it is not known if a rendezvous ever occurred. In the audio, Lewinsky explained that she had decided to record it because she couldn't face writing him another letter.

The Enquirer reported that the tape - and begging love letters Lewinsky wrote to Clinton - were obtained by a cleaner who was hired by friends of Lewinsky's.

'I was supposed to shred everything in late 1998, but for some reason I kept this material,' the cleaner told the Enquirer.

The pleading notes reportedly reveal Lewinsky begging Clinton to make time for her and to explain why he ended their illicit romance.

'It was so sad seeing you last night because I was so angry with you that you once again rejected me and yet, all I wanted was for everyone else in the room to disappear and for you to hold me,' she wrote. 'I loved you with all of my heart, Bill.

'For the life of me, I can't understand how you could be so kind and so cruel to me.'

Another letter asks: 'What did I do to deserve this? I am seriously depressed because of everything that has happened...

'I have lost profoundly both professionally and personally, and in a toss-up, our personal relationship changing has caused me more pain.'

Vehement: Clinton initially denied the affair with Lewinsky in January 1998 - but later admitted to it

Lewinsky was just 22 when she allegedly had the first of nine sexual encounters with the president between November 1995 and March 1997. Details of the affair emerged in 1998.

In the wake of the scandal, Lewinsky became the center of a political storm and gave a series of high-profile interviews.

But unable to escape the shake the reputation, she moved to England in 2005 where she earned her master's degree and worked as a news correspondent for the UK's Channel Five News.

Though it has been 15 years since her claims, her presence still looms in the life of Clinton's post-presidency and Hillary's political career.

And sources told the National Enquirer that this most recent revelation could derail Hillary's expected bid for the White House in 2016.

Out and about: Lewinsky, who is now 40, is pictured out in New York last October

The Manning Conviction

Following his conviction this week on at least five counts of espionage and several lesser charges, including fraud and theft, U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning will now do hard time in prison.
In certain circumstances, spies deserve capital punishment. Several decades in jail strikes me being as Manning's criminal due, however.
Treason rates the death sentence, but Manning didn't commit treason. In fact, he beat that rap.
Manning admitted he gave Julian Assange's Wikileaks organization at least 700,000 pages of classified U.S. documents, as well as numerous classified videos. The massive document release included classified State Department cables and military information related to operations in combat zones. So prosecutors charged Manning with "aiding the enemy," an act of treason. The prosecution argued that Manning knew the information he released would aid al-Qaida.
Proving treason involves proving "specific intent." Prosecutors had to prove Manning specifically intended to aid specific enemies. They failed to make that case.
Manning's theft and espionage, in fact, were rather unspecific. He stole information by the megabyte, with scant selectivity and little reflection. He looked for secrets addressing topics that assured sensational media coverage.
Theft, however is still theft; violating military oaths and ironclad laws protecting classified information are military crimes.
Leaking unspecific classified information, especially trainloads of it, can damage U.S. defenses.
I think it already has. Manning's filched documents provide everyone -- friend, foe or bystander -- with a detailed look at American information gathering, information assessment and decision-making in the sensitive realms of foreign policy and defense.
Liberals forever extoll "soft diplomacy," the goodnik mission of diplomats in contrast to the "hard diplomacy" soldiers wield. Diplomacy requires able, careful diplomats. Yet Manning's leaked State Department cables provide our adversaries with a highly granular, candid and often personal portrait of a generation of U.S. diplomats. The cables reveal how specific diplomats operate, what they seek to accomplish and with whom they talk.
Though Manning's leaks did not place American diplomats in immediate mortal danger (a treasonous act), the leaks damaged their ability to conduct diplomacy, both near and long term. The private first class clearly does not understand that diplomacy is America's first line of defense.
Manning claims he became "disillusioned" with a foreign policy focused on "killing and capturing people" -- people, he said, not terrorists. So he spied and leaked information that would damage the agencies and agents conducting American foreign policy.
Manning's passionate defenders argue this damage serves the greater good, but they bear no personal responsibility for protecting American lives and vital interests even if they benefit from that protection.
Excusing Manning's crimes demonstrates a narrow, to the point of benighted, understanding of foreign policy in a dangerous, complicated world. "Burning" U.S. diplomats doesn't simply damage U.S. foreign policy, it hinders constructive, stop-the-killing diplomacy globally.
Several State Department cables were classified in deference to the sensitivities of foreign diplomats. One quotes a senior Chinese official bluntly describing North Korea's regime as crackpot. Is an honest comment, very likely an incremental step toward diplomatically reducing the threat of nuclear war in East Asia, worth keeping secret? Manning and Assange exposed it, but their vision of greater good is rather criminally self-serving.
Eventually an adversary will use insights gained from analyzing Manning's stolen documents to conduct operations that threaten American lives and livelihoods. Delayed treason, however, isn't a crime.
Manning, demoted to the rank of convict, has earned his next military tour. Before his trial, the military kept Manning in its Joint Regional Correctional Facility. The JRCF incarcerates pretrial defendants and prisoners with short sentences (five years or less). It's located at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan. -- but don't confuse it with its famous Leavenworth neighbor, the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks. The "DB" is what Hollywood means by "Leavenworth." News media report Manning will do his stretch in a DB cell.
The U.S. Army Command and General Staff School is also located at Ft. Leavenworth. The staff school runs what joking soldiers attending it refer to as "the short course." The Disciplinary Barracks? It runs Leavenworth's "long course." Would-be spies, take note. The long course isn't a death sentence, but it is certainly no joke.

Defunding Obamacare: Worth a Try

Republicans have some fiscal opportunities — and should seize them.
By Michael Tanner

After a summer of relative quiet on the fiscal front, Congress is approaching two deadlines that will be vital not just in terms of the U.S. economy, but for the future of the Republican party as well.
Sometime in late October, the federal government will once again reach its statutory debt limit, meaning that, without congressional action, the government will not be able to borrow any more money. That would require an immediate 25 percent cut in government spending — the sequester on steroids.

Embattled Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner and an attorney in the Federal Election Commission’s general counsel’s office appear to have twice colluded to influence the record before the FEC’s vote in the case of a conservative non-profit organization, according to e-mails unearthed by the House Ways and Means Committee and obtained exclusively by National Review Online. The correspondence suggests the discrimination of conservative groups extended beyond the IRS and into the FEC, where an attorney from the agency’s enforcement division in at least one case sought and received tax information about the status of a conservative group, the American Future Fund, before recommending that the commission prosecute it for violations of campaign-finance law. Lerner, the former head of the IRS’s exempt-organizations division, worked at the FEC from 1986 to 1995, and was known for aggressive investigation of conservative groups during her tenure there, too.

Too much to think!

Obama’s clueless message to America’s middle class shows a presidency out of touch with reality!

President Obama has been rolling up his sleeves campaigning across the country delivering a surreal stump speech message supposedly aimed at the middle class: big government works, Obamacare is manna from heaven, the wave of recent scandals are “phony” figments of the imagination, and all economic problems are the fault of the Republicans. Conveniently, he leaves out the bankruptcy of Detroit, a city run by his own party for more than half a century. His message is so stale and unconvincing, that even The New York Times andWashington Post have noticed. Both papers, usually loyal to Obama, remarked that Tuesday’s speech by the president in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was largely a rehash of old rhetoric, with The Post commenting that Obama’s “grand bargain” for the middle class was merely “a repackaging of old proposals,” and swiftly rebuffed by the GOP.
President Obama claims that “as long as I have the privilege of serving as your President. I’ll spend every minute of every day I have left in this office doing everything I can to build that better bargain for the middle class and make this country a place where everyone who works hard can get ahead.” The problem for Obama is that the American public isn’t buying the Kool-Aid. Poll after poll in the last couple of weeks have shown the president’s job approval ratings at their lowest levels for two years. The White House’s flagship health care reforms are so unpopular that even Democrats are starting to turn against it. In California the president’s ratings have plummeted by ten percentage points.
In Tennessee, Barack Obama talked about shoring up the middle class, but has little understanding of the real issues that middle class voters are facing today – high taxes, burdensome regulations.....